Courage In The Crucible by Arthur Miller

“Courage is measured by an individual’s willingness to continue fighting even when the likelihood of victory is small.” It is a person’s mental or moral strength to resist extreme difficulty. It is the strength of mind that makes one able to meet danger and difficulties with firmness. This withstanding opposition to defeat allows a person to persevere although the probability of triumph is unfavorable. Arthur Miller’s The Crucible and

Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird justify this statement.

Arthur Miller exemplifies this definition of courage by the use of characterization. In Act III of the play, the odds against Proctor are overwhelming. If he loses the case, he and all the people who support him will be destroyed. For Proctor to save his wife and friends, he must convince the court that everything it has done so far is wrong. Proctor is willing to risk everything, including his good name and even his life, to bring out the truth. Throughout this act, Parris and Cheever act as impediments to John.

Cheever, to deface the reputation of John, mentions that Proctor ripped the warrant when

Elizabeth was arrested and that he plows on Sundays. Parris, in addition, says that

Proctor “comes to church but once a month!” However, this does not hamper Proctor as he persists to bring out the truth. Another obstacle that Proctor must surpass occurs when

Abigail and the girls feign that Mary Warren sends out her spirit reinforcing the notion that Mary is a witch. In response, Proctor confesses his lechery to weaken the perception of the saintly image of Abigail and to reveal her motive. By avowing his affair with

Abigail, Proctor illustrates his perseverance to save the lives of his wife and friends.

The setting of The Crucible is another element to justify the definition of courage.

The play takes place in Salem, Massachusetts in 1692, thirty years after the colony was established. It was a period of political and religious turmoil. The Puritans settled there to seek religious freedom and to “purify” the teachings and ceremonies of the Church of

England. The Puritans believed in strict reinforcement of the laws they found in the

Bible. They accepted little challenge to their religious beliefs, and were intolerant to other Christian denominations. Paradoxically, their fanatic zeal led them to exercise the exact kind of repression on others that they had fled England to escape. In addition, under the Puritan court, the pressure to confess and atone for one's sins was immense.

Innocent individuals with nothing to confess were subsequently often led to admit to